Quality Discount Market Corp. v. Laconia Planning Bd.

Decision Date09 March 1990
Docket NumberNo. 88-301,88-301
Citation571 A.2d 271,132 N.H. 734
PartiesQUALITY DISCOUNT MARKET CORP. v. LACONIA PLANNING BOARD, City of Laconia, Harris Wayside Furniture Co., Inc. & H. Russell Harris.
CourtNew Hampshire Supreme Court

Law Offices of David J. KillKelley P.C., Laconia (David J. KillKelley, on the brief and orally), for plaintiff.

Law Offices of Decker, Fitzgerald & Sessler, Laconia (James N. Sessler, on the brief), for City of Laconia.

James L. Burke, Gilford, on brief and orally, for Harris Wayside Furniture Co., Inc. and H. Russell Harris.

THAYER, Justice.

Quality Discount Market Corp. (Quality Discount or the plaintiff) and Harris Wayside Furniture Company, Inc. (Harris Furniture or the defendant) both appeal a decree of the Superior Court (Dunn, J.) ruling that a 1958 "indenture" between the parties' predecessors-in-title created an appurtenant easement, giving Harris Furniture the right to use four parking spaces, upon the plaintiff's land. Quality Discount argues that Harris Furniture has no property right to have its customers park on Quality Discount's lot, and Harris Furniture contends that its easement encompasses the right to use more than four parking spaces. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the trial court's ruling and hold that Harris Furniture has no right to have its customers park in any of the spaces located on the plaintiff's premises.

The record indicates that Quality Discount and Harris Furniture own adjacent parcels of land on Union Avenue, in Laconia, with Harris Furniture owning the property to the north of Quality Discount. On April 9, 1958, Champagne's Super Market, Inc. (Champagne's), which is the plaintiff's predecessor-in-title, and Earle and Doris Phelps, who are the defendant's predecessors-in-title, entered into an indenture under which a pre-existing right of way was moved north and a property line was moved south. The indenture provides that any future purchasers of Champagne's property be acceptable to the Phelpses; otherwise, the right of way would "cease." Embedded in the paragraph describing this condition and limitations on the use of the right of way is the sentence which has given rise to the present dispute: "The first party [Champagne's] agrees to permit the use by customers of Wayside Furniture of parking facilities provided on the premises of the first party for its customers." "Wayside Furniture" is a reference to the furniture store called Tower Wayside Furniture operated by the Phelpses.

There is evidence that from 1958 to 1972, the customers of Tower Wayside Furniture used anywhere from zero to four of the parking spaces located on the property owned by Champagne's on any given day. In 1972, the Harrises purchased the Phelpses' property and business and formed the Harris Wayside Furniture Company, Inc. From 1972 to 1982, the defendant's customers used roughly the same number of spaces as the Phelpses' customers had used. Then, in 1982, the defendant expanded its business and built an addition onto its property. Around this time, the defendant's use of the plaintiff's lot increased to the point where its customers would sometimes park in over ten of the plaintiff's spaces. There is evidence that when the defendant has special promotions, up to twenty of its customers' cars will be parked in Quality Discount's lot. During the defendant's Grand House Opening in 1987, its customers "occupied the complete front parking lot" belonging to Quality Discount.

The plaintiff purchased Champagne's property in 1974 and continued the business of operating a grocery store. Quality Discount did not complain about the use by Harris Furniture of its parking facilities until around 1982, when the plaintiff noticed that in addition to Harris Furniture's customers, the defendant's employees, sales people, and delivery people were making liberal use of their parking lot. Until 1986, the defendant's employees continued using the Quality Discount lot to park their cars, and there is evidence that trucks delivering furniture to Harris Furniture continued to park on the plaintiff's property until the time of trial.

On July 17, 1987, Harris Furniture submitted to the Laconia Planning Board (the planning board) a plan to enlarge its warehousing and display area and to provide additional parking spaces on its property. The planning director determined that Harris Furniture would have to provide forty-one spaces to comply with the Laconia Zoning Ordinance. The defendant represented to the city planner that it had the right, pursuant to the 1958 indenture, to use an unlimited number of parking spaces on Quality Discount's lot. Therefore, based on the defendant's proposal to provide twenty-four spaces on its own property, coupled with Harris Furniture's representation to the board of its right to use an unlimited number of spaces on Quality Discount's lot, the planning board approved the defendant's site plan on August 3, 1987. By petition dated September 2, 1987, Quality Discount asked the superior court for certiorari review pursuant to RSA 677:15. The City of Laconia answered on November 3, 1987, and on the same date moved for the joinder of Harris Wayside Furniture Company, Inc. as a third party. The plaintiff's September 2 petition alleged only that the planning board's approval of Harris Furniture's site plan was unlawful and unreasonable. On December 21, 1987 however, the plaintiff amended its petition to add Harris Furniture as a party defendant and to request a declaratory judgment concerning Harris Furniture's right to park on Quality Discount's property. See RSA 491:22.

Quality Discount alleged in its amended petition that the intent of the parties to the 1958 indenture was limited to Champagne's granting a personal license to the Phelpses to use Champagne's parking facilities. According to the plaintiff, this license expired when Tower Wayside Furniture went out of business and the Phelpses sold their property to the Harrises. By way of answer dated January 6, 1988, Harris Furniture claimed that all rights established in the 1958 indenture are permanent, including the right to use the plaintiff's parking facilities.

After a trial on the merits, the trial court entered a decree dated June 1, 1988, in which it ruled that "the 1958 'indenture' created an appurtenant easement in favor of the then Phelps' parcel," and that the "range of the easement is limited to four (4) spaces located in the ten space 'strip' abutting the Harris property." Turning to the planning board's approval of the defendant's site plan, the court found that if Harris Furniture had had the right to use seventeen spaces in the plaintiff's lot, the planning board's approval would have been lawful as far as the parking issue was concerned. However, based on its ruling that the defendant was entitled to a parking easement consisting of only four spaces, the trial court vacated the planning board's approval of Harris Furniture's site plan.

The issues raised by the parties on appeal include whether or not the trial court erred in finding that Harris Furniture possesses an appurtenant easement which is limited to four spaces, and whether the trial court erred in finding that the Laconia Planning Board's actions would have been lawful if the defendant had had the right to use seventeen spaces on the plaintiff's parking lot. The first issue we will address is the extent of Harris Furniture's rights, if any, to park in Quality Discount's lot. While the defendant claims it possesses an appurtenant easement, the plaintiff alleges that Harris Furniture has no right at all to park on its premises. If the defendant possesses an easement, its interest derives from a grant given in the 1958 indenture. Therefore, we must interpret the indenture to determine what parking rights, if any, Champagne's transferred to the Phelpses in 1958.

After identifying the parties to the agreement, the indenture contains a clause describing its purpose:

"WHEREAS it is the desire of both the first party [Champagne's] and the second parties [Earle and Doris Phelps] to move a right of way now existing across the premises of the first party a distance of four (4) feet northerly, and to convey the fee across which said right of way runs to the second parties, subject to a right of way in the first party in common with the second parties."

The indenture then describes in separate, enumerated paragraphs the boundaries of the strip of land conveyed in fee from Champagne's to the Phelpses, and the boundaries of the newly established right of way running to Champagne's across the Phelpses' property. In discussing the conveyance of the fee and right of way, the parties used words evidencing their desire to grant permanent rights in the property transferred. For example, in the paragraph regarding the right of way, the Phelpses agreed to "remise, release and forever quitclaim to the first party [Champagne's], its successors and assigns a right of way to pass and repass in common with the second parties" over an area...

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7 cases
  • FDIC v. Caia
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire
    • 19 July 1993
    ...is incapable of existence separate and apart from the dominant tenement, and is inheritable." Quality Discount Market Corp. v. Laconia Planning Bd., 132 N.H. 734, 739, 571 A.2d 271 (1990). The conveyance of an easement is, in law, the grant of reasonable use. Chapman v. Newmarket Mfg. Co., ......
  • Flanagan v. Prudhomme
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    • New Hampshire Supreme Court
    • 15 June 1994
    ...surrounding the conveyance may be used to clarify the terms of an ambiguous deed. Quality Discount Market Corp. v. Laconia Planning Bd., 132 N.H. 734, 740, 571 A.2d 271, 274-75 (1990); Locke Lake Colony Assoc. v. Town of Barnstead, 126 N.H. 136, 139, 489 A.2d 120, 122 (1985). A deed is pate......
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    • New Hampshire Supreme Court
    • 3 November 1997
    ...the equivalent of an ownership interest in land is a question of law reviewable by this court. Quality Discount Market Corp. v. Laconia Planning Bd. , 132 N.H. 734, 739, 571 A.2d 271, 274 (1990). A license is "a transient or impermanent interest which does not constitute an interest in land......
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